The need for tweed

Given the chance create his very own 'estate' Harris tweed, David Profumo knocks at the door of Donald John Mackay, the Hebridean weaver who has changed an entire industry

- David Profumo

IT is the only time I have walked out of a restaurant with a pair of my father-in-law’s trousers over my arm. For a significant birthday, The Doctor (as he is known) had arranged for me to have a specially woven Harris tweed version of his own venerable sporting suit and he was loaning me the original as a template. Although I am only the laird of a modest Highland hill farm, I have always loved the concept of having my very own ‘estate tweed’.

When, many years ago, he bought her Hebridean croft, The Doctor was given by old Mrs Macmillan a traditional length of homespun she had woven there herself in the outhouse and he has worn it proudly ever since. Over the decades that I have been visiting the island, I, too, have developed a penchant for tweed, a textile of subtle beauty that somehow reflects the texture and earthy palette of the local landscape—it is hardwearing, handsome and keeps me snug when the central heating fails up the glen here.